#thresh thg

She’s fast.

Like, obscenely fast.

Fast enough that even Eddie, who’s spent the last several minutes swearing at the television and pacing in front of it like a feral housewife trapped in the apocalypse, actually sputters in shock.

“Jesus Christ, she’s—she’s fucking booking it—”

“She’s really fast,” Lucas blurts.

“She’s like—” Dustin gestures helplessly at the screen. “She’s like a FOX!”

“Groundbreaking analysis, Henderson,” Erica snarks, even though her voice is thinner than usual.

Mike still hasn’t taken his eyes off the screen. “She’s gotta keep moving.”

Under the blankets, Will makes a small, miserable noise.

Mike’s grip tightens instantly. “It’s okay.”

It is very much not okay.

The loud storm outside doesn’t help. Nothing about tonight helps. The whole house feels like it’s hunkered down in the middle of some other pit of survival all its own, lit only by television static and lightning that keeps threatening to break for real. They’re as safe as people can be here — officers outside, the house reinforced, Eddie and Nancy and the kids all inside together — but “safety” is a weird word now. It mostly just means not dead yet. It mostly just means the danger is one room over, one town over, one screen away.

Out on the porch, Powell braces one shoulder into the tall post beneath the awning and squints into the weather while another officer stays in the squad car out front and a third keeps watch in the rear. The rain is too vicious now to keep patrolling the perimeter on foot nonstop, but nobody’s slacking. Not tonight. Not with the rally earlier still buzzing through the national news and Peacekeepers watching Hawkins like it’s a spark — waiting for an excuse to become flame.

But inside Steve’s house, that part of the world has become background for now.

Because onscreen? Foxface keeps running.

She bursts from one cluster of trees into another, nearly losing her footing on slick roots. There’s that deep, wet, gargling roar behind her now — not close enough to see yet, not quite, but close enough to feel in the way the camera trembles with every shaky capture and the leaves all around her shake with the passing of it. The sound of that thing is somehow worse than before. Like a throat full of blood trying to become language. Like bones snapping under wet leather, like somebody dragged a butcher shop through hell and stitched the leftovers into an appetite.

And every time it roars, the whole room in Hawkins jolts.

Dustin actually yelps once.

Erica, peeking again through her fingers, smacks both palms back over her eyes and says, “Nope. Absolutely the hell not—”

“Then stop looking,” Lucas orders, squeezing her tighter. 

“I am stopping looking!”

“You keep un-stopping!”

Eddie whirls around. “Hey, let’s all not look!”

Everyone shouts “SHUT UP!” in perfect unison.

Then Nancy’s voice finally works again. Barely. “Keep moving,” she whispers to the screen, like Foxface can hear her through twenty different layers of the digital realm of impossible odds. “C’mon, c’mon—keep going.”

“What if she doesn’t make it,” Mike rasps, almost to himself.

“Don’t say that!” Erica shouts, eyes still covered.

Will’s voice comes next, muffled from under the blankets, small and raw. “Is she still running…?”

Mike doesn’t even hesitate. “Yeah.”

“…is it close?”

Mike does hesitate this time.

So Eddie answers instead — way too fast, way too loudly, like he can outrun the truth with volume. “Nope! Not close! She’s got plenty of room—”

Onscreen, Foxface nearly folds in half trying to catch one breath. One… Just one. She braces a hand against a tree, gasps, looks over her shoulder—

—and that thing shrieks again so closely this time that she jerks upright with a cry and bolts before the sound is even over.

The living room collectively loses its mind.

“Oh, fuck that!” Eddie yelps.

“What is that thing—” Nancy croakily breathes.

Blood from the monster sprays onto a camera lens.

Dustin clamps both hands over his own mouth, then immediately peels them away again — because he clearly cannot commit to a coping mechanism for more than half a second.

“She’s gonna make herself sick,” Lucas worries aloud.

“She’s gonna make herself dead if she stops,” Erica shoots back, technically still not looking but somehow also tracking the whole thing.

All the cameras keep bouncing along with Foxface as she tears into the high grasslands now, disappearing up to her shoulders in the tall swaying stalks. For one half-second it almost looks like she’s gone. Like the grassland itself swallowed her whole.

Then the cameras catch up as the stalks begin thrashing in a line behind her.

Not from the wind.

From pursuit.

And that’s enough to make even Eddie fall silent for one perilous second, his face draining while he stares at the screen.

Because now that thing is in the grass with her.

They can’t see all of it — only pieces. A slick rise of something too pale. A jut of what looks like a human rib. The wrong kind of movement, too many limbs moving at once and then not enough, like this whole beast keeps rebuilding itself mid-stride. Grass bends. Something inside it gurgles. A noise like teeth scraping glass rings out for one hideous second.

Foxface screams again, like a newly crowned scream queen.

This time nobody in the house says a damn word.

But then she bursts from the grass—

—and slams full-force into another body.

She goes down so hard she practically bounces. The other figure jolts back one half-step — more startled than felled, and for one beat both of them just freeze there in the edge of the field.

Dustin shouts first. 

“THRESH!”

Mike half-stands. “Oh my God.”

Will finally peeks.

He probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, but suddenly one terrified eye appears over the top edge of the blanket cocoon.

Thresh and Foxface now stare at each other in absolute, identical, wordless what-the-fuck panic.

It would almost be funny if the thing behind them wasn’t still coming.

Thresh looks like he’d been dragged out of whatever quiet corner of hell he’d managed to carve for himself and handed a fresh emergency. Foxface looks like a skittish fox caught in a headlight beam with all her bones still somehow deciding to run anyway. They’re both breathing like their lungs might split.

Then they both hear it.

Both whip around.

Both see the high grass still churning.

And then? Because apparently tonight has decided subtlety is for cowards — they look back at each other one more time and, without saying a word, both scramble upright and take off in the same direction.

Eddie actually laughs once.

Not because it’s funny.

Because it’s so insane his body doesn’t know what else to do with it.

“—no way,” he shouts.

“No freaking way,” Dustin echoes.

Thresh and Foxface run side by side for a handful of strides, both clearly just trying to put distance between themselves and the nightmare behind them. Foxface is still swifter — still lower to the ground, still made for this kind of desperate sprint — while Thresh is all power and bulk and legs built like tree trunks. Watching them try to match pace now is like watching two completely different genres of survival collide.

But then Foxface stumbles.

Just one bad step.

Just enough to pitch sideways.

And instead of letting her be the meal that lets him get away, Thresh catches her by the arm so fast it doesn’t even look thought-through. One grab. One wrench upward. One drag to get her feet back under her before he lets go again and both of them keep hauling ass.

That does something ugly and hot to every heart in the house.

Because there it is again.

Humanity where the game wants blood.

Choice where the rules want instinct.

Nancy actually chokes out, “Oh my God—” this time with hot tears springing hard and fast into her eyes.

Under the blankets, Will has pushed the comforter down enough now that his whole face is visible, pale and trembling and riveted despite himself.

“…they’re helping each other,” he says softly.

Mike’s big eyes don’t look away from the screen. “Yeah.”

The thing behind them tributes roars again.

Thresh and Foxface eventually burst from the high grass into the broad open clearing around the Cornucopia — and they skid hard, like the whole world just dropped out under their feet.

Because now they are in the center.

Now they are in the eye of the storm.

Now they are visible.

Now the giant golden mouth of the Cornucopia looms ahead of them under the game lights and moon haze alike. And every remaining secret inside the arena suddenly feels dragged toward the same middle point.

“Shit,” Eddie breathes.

No one adds to that.

Foxface takes off first.

Not toward the Cornucopia exactly, but around it — cutting hard and running in this strange, jerky zigzag type pattern that makes absolutely no sense for a solid five seconds.

Thresh stares after her even as he keeps running.

Then his whole face does this baffled little what the fuck is that.

But then, because apparently the answer is “trust the weird fox girl,” he starts copying her.

The sight of Thresh — this enormous, carved-from-stone mountain of a boy — trying to mimic Foxface’s twitchy zigzag across the edge of the field is so profoundly absurd that Dustin lets out the ugliest little bark-laugh of his life.

He does not mean to.

It just tears right out of him.

“Oh my God—he’s doing it too?!—”

Lucas is gone. Fully gone. He’s now bent over laughing in pure panic, which only makes Erica start cackling too because shared hysteria has clearly won the room.

Even Nancy makes this startled half-laugh, half-sob sound into her hand.

Because yes.

Yes, this is terrifying.

But it is also genuinely fucking insane to watch Thresh bouncing around after Foxface like a giant terrified ballerina while the Cornucopia comes into view.

And right there by it—

Tommy.

Marvel.

Syl.

All three of them stare out in varying shades of alarm.

Syl looks like she might simply collapse and let God sort it out. Tommy looks pissed off that reality keeps inventing all new problems for him to navigate on the fucking fly. Marvel looks like someone handed him the wrong damn script but he’s trying to pretend he’s still on top of the scene.

“—what the hell is happening,” Mike frantically whispers.

Onscreen, apparently no one in the arena knows either.

Tommy steps halfway out from the Cornucopia, tracks both of the zigzagging tributes, looks at the hideous beast tearing after them through the grass, and visibly aborts whatever sentence had just started coming out of his mouth.

Because now he sees it too.

Now they all do.

The creature barrels from the high grass with enough force to flatten stalks in its wake. It is every bit as foul and wrong as the night had made it sound — gangly and huge, a body made of things that should never have been part of one another. Human bone strapped into a spider’s silhouette. Flesh hanging in slick ropes. Cartilage jutting from its sides. A skull-shape where a face might have been if a face had been designed by a sadist with private access to a morgue.

Syl gags so hard on camera that Erica actually flinches.

Tommy just scowls at the thing then disappears back into the Cornucopia for half a second and comes back out with two swords — big, wicked things that glint meanly under the moonlight.

Marvel grabs his spear.

Syl swipes bile then clutches hers like the spear might be emotional support.

“Welp,” Eddie croaks, voice cracking like a puberty-ridden middle school boy. “My bet’s still on Thumbelina and Mount Everest.”

“What are they gonna do with those—?!” Dustin squeaks.

Tommy H. clearly has an answer, because he squares up like some scarred brute in a myth nobody should have to believe in at the mouth of the chrome shape. Even through the screen he looks feral now, body all coiled force and fury. Marvel tries to match him, face pinched up into a snarl that is definitely more frightened than he wants anyone to know.

“Be fucking ready—” he orders Marvel and Syl through gritted teeth, cracking his neck. 

Marvel nods once sharply, locked the fuck in.

Syl looks like she might hurl again, clutching her spear and shaking hard like a human earthquake as she pathetically braces herself.

The monster barrels toward them.

The boys brace.

Syl gulps. “Okay but what if—”

BOOM.

The monster hits a forgotten landmine.

The blast isn’t huge.

It doesn’t need to be.

One second? That thing is charging. The next, there’s a hard popping boom and an explosion of dirt, grass, bone, wet tissue and a shrieking noise that makes half the room in Hawkins clap hands over ears too late.

The monster comes apart.

Not dies.

Comes apart.

…in chunks.

Thresh looks over his shoulder long enough to clock the blast, visibly recoils, then keeps running. Foxface doesn’t even bother looking back before she’s vanishing back toward another strip of trees, choosing survival over answers like the smart little menace she is.

“Holy shit,” Nancy rasps, nearly choking Dustin as she holds him.

He doesn’t even bother pulling away, because he honestly doesn’t mind the extra security blanket as they all watch Thresh onscreen, now breaking off in a different direction altogether, his massive body pounding back toward the darker edge of the arena — giving nobody and nothing the satisfaction of an extra second.

“Go, go, go—” Lucas shouts, like either tribute can hear him.

At the Cornucopia, Tommy and Marvel and Syl just stand there staring at the wreckage.

Which, honestly? Fair.

Because now the wreckage is moving.

Slowly at first.

Then with purpose.

It doesn’t just move, though.

It crawls.

Wet pieces twitch. Bone drags. Flesh crawls. What should be separate starts seeking itself again like magnets made in hell.

Nancy makes a strangled sound.

“What IS that?!” Lucas shouts.

“NOPE,” Eddie shouts immediately, as if the monster might care. “No. That is against God. That’s what that is.”

The beast growls.

Under his blanket fortress again, Will audibly whimpers.

Eddie turns, eyes round with worry. “Will—”

“Don’t look,” Mike says first, pulling him in closer. “Don’t look, okay??”

It’s very sweet.

But it’s also way too late.

Because the screen is now full of that thing reassembling itself while Tommy, Marvel and Syl stand braced at the edge of the mines watching it happen in real time.

Tommy rolls his shoulders.

Actually rolls his shoulders.

Like he’s preparing for a football game instead of an eldritch abomination.

Marvel lowers his center of gravity with the spear gripped two-handed, trying very hard to look like the kind of warrior who’s ever wanted this smoke. Syl is shaking so hard her whole spear wobbles.

“That chick’s gonna pass out,” Dustin stammers.

“That chick has been one bad blink away from passing out since yesterday,” Erica fires back with hysteria climbing again.  

The thing slithers itself upright.

It’s somehow worse now.

Bigger.

Reassembled but never cleaner — with blood, guts and slime stringing from one piece to another like the universe itself half-assed the job. Its body lifts, rises, sways, ROARS.

The sound is unbearable.

It hits the Cornucopia clearing and the houses in Hawkins at the same time, blasts out of every television speaker and window and frightened face across the country.

In Steve’s living room, everybody shrinks.

Will buries his whole face again.

Mike bows over him like a shield.

Nancy pulls Dustin in tighter as he ducks into her.

Lucas wraps both arms all the way around Erica now, who no longer bothers trying to pretend any of this is cool.

And Eddie, still stubbornly planted in front of the giant TV like some discount guardian angel in a ripped band shirt, starts stammering the kind of useless reassurance that nobody believes but everybody still needs.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, they’re—listen, it’s fine, they’re all—”

No one answers him.

Because the creature rears back.

Because Tommy does too.

Because Marvel snarls.

Because Syl looks like the physical embodiment of I shoulda stayed home.

And because then, right at the exact second the thing launches forward—

—Carol suddenly comes barreling out of the Cornucopia shrieking like a feral little demon with a flamethrower in both hands.

It happens so fast nobody in Hawkins processes it in order.

One second Tommy and Marvel and Syl are braced for battle.

The next, Carol explodes into the frame — hair gone wild, face swollen from old stings and new fury alike, mouth open around some absolutely savage string of uncensored obscenities—

“BURN, YOU FUCKING CUNT—!”

—and then a sheet of fire takes over the whole damn screen.

Every camera angle blows white-orange.

The television becomes nothing but flames.

The entire household reacts. Someone (Dustin, maybe Eddie—maybe all of them at once) wildly exclaims, “OH SHIT!”

And the roar of flames diminishes the monster’s.

The Capitol [Day 4 -> Day 5]

Jim Hopper had long since stopped pretending the Capitol could still surprise him.

That had been his first mistake.

The second was thinking midnight meant anything.

Midnight, apparently, just meant the bastards had more airtime.

Hopper sat propped up in the silk-and-sin penthouse bed with one knee bent and the iPad planted in his lap, mouth hanging half open around an unlit cigarette while every channel in this godforsaken city tried to outdo the next in saying the exact same batshit thing louder. He already watched the whole monster showdown live, already had his fair share of none-rattling anxiety and cursing at the TV while watching his tributes' lives be spared before the others barely outlived the beast too.

Now he's watching the aftermath make headlines.

On the television, Caesar Flickerman was glowing.

Actually glowing.

Not metaphorically. The man was wearing some sort of silver-blue suit with a collar sharp enough to slit a throat, and every time that he moved beneath all the studio lights, he flashed like a lure dropped into deep water.

“And what a spectacular upset!” he was saying for what had to be the fortieth time across the last several channels. “Just when the audience believed the creature would finish what it started, Miss Carol Perkins rose like fury itself from the ashes of tracker jacker delirium and delivered—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hopper drawled around an unlit cigarette. “We saw it, Barney.”

He flipped the channel.

Claudius Templesmith had somehow found another set.

Now he sat in front of a giant playback screen where the whole horror show was being replayed from four different angles at once. Foxface running like the devil was drafting her. Thresh slamming into her in the high grass. The monster barreling behind them like something that had clawed its way up out of hell because hell finally got sick of it too. Tommy and Marvel bracing by the Cornucopia with Syl. And then Carol…

Carol with her hair wild and her face twisted and that flamethrower belching unholy fire straight into the night.

“It was instinct—raw instinct!” Claudius was practically crooning. “The timing. The violence, the utmost refusal to die in obscurity.” He grins wildly. “District Two’s Carol Perkins… has officially entered the conversation in a whole new way—”

Hopper lit the cigarette.

He didn’t know whether smoking in the room was allowed.

He didn’t care.

The first drag tore down his lungs and sat there, hot and nasty. And for one brief second? It was enough to keep him from reaching for the bottle on the bar cart fifteen feet away.

That counted as progress.

He exhaled toward the ceiling and changed the channel again.

The View was somehow worse.

Five women sat around a shining glass table, dressed like pearls and knives, all talking over one another with the kind of intensity usually reserved for viral murder trials and divorces.

“—I’m sorry, but that was a riveting example of female rage,” one of them is declaring, chopping the air with one red lacquered nail. “I do not care what anyone else says. She chose her moment. She waited. She struck. That is strategy.” Another woman laughed sharply. “And isn’t it interesting that, once again— when the men were posturing and the beast was still coming, who actually saved the day?”

Hopper makes a face. “Oh don’t start—”

“No, I’m going to start,” the woman’s telling the live audience, coincidentally in time with Hopper’s grumbling. “Because every single year we are told men are the superior species—the natural protectors, the tactical minds, and yet? Tonight? It was a girl fresh out of a two-day coma with swelling all over her face who grabbed a flamethrower and ended the conversation.” “I’m fucking saying!” another host backed her up. “Where are the men, we ask,” another woman said in a mock tone, gesturing wildly and theatrically, impassioned. “Like the men do anything better.” “Which proves my point,” the first woman concluded. “They were standing. She was doing.”

Hopper barked out one ugly laugh through the smoke. “Last I checked, that creature was still putting itself back together, the manic pixie was petrified in place and those boys were still standing there with swords.”

The woman looked right into the camera. “Men… are useless.”

The chief gave a wry, humorless smile at the television screen. “We know.”

He took another drag and flipped again.

Panem Tonight had a glossy blond anchor now standing in front of a rotating three-dimensional model of the Cornucopia, talking with the kind of outraged delight that only rich people and televangelists ever seemed to perfect.

“The real question now—” she says breathlessly, “is why the Careers were sitting on a flamethrower this entire time. What else is inside that structure? What are they hiding? What have they been prepared for that the audience hasn’t?” A military analyst beside her, handsome as an aspirin advertisement, folded his hands together, replying, “It suggests contingency planning. Remember, they didn’t just hoard food. They hoarded response options.”

“Oh, come on,” Hopper muttered. “Response options. Just say giant fuck-off lighter and keep it moving.”

He kept smoking.

Kept flipping.

Kept his iPad balanced on his thigh with the arena live feed split in quiet little boxes that did not care one bit about any of the noise outside them.

One box held you, invisible to almost everybody — but not to the Capitol’s camera angles when they chose to zoom in on the illusion, even though they could not capture your hidden form. Curled high up inside your camouflage hammock in the dark, breath shallow and precious, hidden in the trees like a secret the woods had agreed to keep.

One box held Steve and Ro.

Steve was still out cold, with Ro still tucked into his side in the sleeping bag, small as a folded prayer beside him, eyes open now and then in the night but body still.

Hopper stared at that little square for longer than he meant to.

Then he dragged from the cigarette again and changed the TV channels with a sharp click. A local Capitol news desk had brought on three “youth culture” commentators — which was apparently code for rich twenty-somethings with expensive hair, trying to sound like they invented human feeling.

One of them leaned toward the desk and said, utterly serious, “Indiana’s tributes have fundamentally changed the ratings landscape of this year’s first annual Hunger Games.” Another nodded along. “Oh, absolutely. It isn’t just one standout tribute. It’s a whole ecosystem.” “A narrative ecosystem,” the first corrected.

Hopper closed his eyes for one beat. “A bullshit ecosystem,” he muttered, smoke drifting out of his nose.

When he looked again, they were still talking.

Foxface, they said, had become “an icon of prey intelligence.”

Thresh had become “a study in disciplined restraint.”

Carol Perkins had “officially crossed from supporting threat to headline-level spectacle.”

Tommy Hagan was being called “terrifyingly watchable.”

Marcel Whitlock was dubbed “football captain gone rogue.”

Ro was being called “the little guardian in the leaves” and “Pan’s shadow.”

And you…

You still had your own whole category. Arena angel. “The dove.” The baker’s daughter. Shadow architect. Mercy in warfare, kindness under pressure.

Steve still had his too. “The boy on fire.” The young man on fire. The “broken golden boy” and “small town hero.” The volunteer with edge.

Hopper stubbed ash into a crystal ashtray that cost more than any one piece of furniture inside his old cabin ever had… then frowned at it like it personally offended him before letting it go in the same breath. That was the thing about being here now. None of the silk touched him anymore. None of this shine in the penthouse got to him like it did on the first day. His assigned bedroom could’ve been made of gold leaf and angel bones and it still would’ve just been the room where he sat now and waited for your faces to either keep not appearing in the sky or ruin his goddamn life.

He took one more drag and let himself think, very briefly, that a drink would really help right now.

Then he thought about tomorrow.

Thought about mandatory briefings and sponsors and whatever sick little spin cycle the Capitol would force all over this next day.

Thought about needing his head clear.

Thought about all the times he’d reached for the bottle because it was easier than being awake, and how being awake was currently the only thing any of you had from him at all.

So he kept the drink where it was.

Just outside his open door, Effie Trinket was pacing in a line so furiously and efficiently… she might as well have worn a groove into the carpet by now.

“No, of course—” she chirped into the telephone with a smile so bright that it could’ve powered a city block. “Tomorrow? Yes, that’s perfectly manageable. Mm-hm. I understand. All twelve representatives?” She blinked once, twice, her eyes going wider. “Oh—all twelve agents and teams. Splendid.”

She was biting the side of one manicured finger while she said it.

That was the tell.

Effie only ever bit at her hands when she was trying not to vibrate right out of her own skin.

“Yes… yes, I understand the urgency,” she trilled. “No one appreciates the gravity of the moment more than I do, darling... I’ll be there bright and early. How could I possibly resist?”

Hopper watched her pace in front of the windows with the stormless Capitol skyline glowing behind her like some bastard heaven.

She looked put together enough to fool God.

She hadn’t even dressed for bed yet. She stole dinner her perfect little skirt- suit, curls in place. Lipstick still disciplined. Pearl earrings. Everything exactly where it ought to be except for the eyes.

The eyes were too alert.

The eyes had been too alert since sundown.

When she finally hung up, she didn’t even take a breath first. She just made a sound somewhere between a squeak and a growl and crossed the room at warp speed… before dropping onto the couch with her laptop already in her lap.

The keyboard started clacking immediately.

“Mandatory press panel,” she grumbled to no one and everyone. “Nine-thirty. I hate them.”

Hopper snorted smoke. “Might be the first time you’ve bitched about anything in front of me.”

“I did not bitch.”

“Oh, so you do curse.”

Effie ignored him, already typing. Email after email was stacked open on the screen, subject lines multiplying like disease.

INTERVIEW REQUEST: PANEM TONIGHT FEATURE REQUEST FOR CINNA – CAPITOL VOGUE REQUEST FOR COMMENT ON “THE DOVE” – ELLE LIVE ROUND TABLE INVITE – AFTER DARK WITH OCTAVIA CREST STYLING EXCLUSIVE INQUIRY – HIGH GLOSS PANEM TRIBUTE PSYCHOLOGY SEGMENT – TALKBACK NATIONAL

DISTRICT 12 MENTOR AVAILABILITY – NATIONWIDE MORNING BULLETIN

URGENT: COMMENT REQUEST RE: “STAR-CROSSED” NARRATIVE SHIFT

Effie clicked one open.

Dear Miss Trinket, Following tonight’s extraordinary broadcast developments, Panem Tonight would be delighted to host an exclusive morning sit-down with either yourself, Mr. Hopper, or stylist Cinna in order to discuss the evolving emotional architecture surrounding District 12’s tributes…

She deleted half the message before she’d even finished reading it.

Response: Thank you so very much for your enthusiasm regarding District 12’s current public reception. At present, Miss Trinket and her team are unable to accommodate additional morning interviews outside of previously arranged obligations. Your interest is noted with sincere appreciation.

She sent it.

Opened the next.

Capitol Vogue, all sleek fonts and perfume-soaked arrogance, wanted “a few words with Cinna regarding his astonishingly singular styling philosophy, his unreleased tribute sketches, and the unprecedented dual-district assignment maneuver that has captivated the fashion sphere.”

Effie’s lips pursed.

Response: We are truly honored to have sparked such intrigue regarding this matter. Mr. Cinna remains fully occupied with ongoing creative duties and will not be granting fashion commentary at this time. Any and all speculation regarding assignment structure remains exactly that: speculation. Warmly, E. Trinket.

Send.

The next one wanted Hopper. Of course it did. Some breakfast show host whose smile looked dangerous wanted him to personally speak on “the emotional interiority” of Steve Harrington.

Effie read that line twice, then turned her head and stared directly at Hopper, craning her neck to better see him from her perch…

He was still smoking.

Still half sprawled in bed.

Still looking at the television like if he stared long enough it might apologize.

She typed back anyway.

Mr. Hopper is unavailable for interview at this hour and will remain so until otherwise determined by schedule and necessity. 

Then, because she was Effie and could not fully resist the urge to make them feel just a tad bit stupid:

It would be unwise to presume emotional access to a living tribute via secondhand commentary.

Send.

Hopper got BCC’d on it, giving it a quick scan from the bed.

He smirked. “Nice.”

She didn’t look up. “I have layers, James.”

“You and onions.”

“That was rude.”

“Yeah.”

Another email.

This one from a teen magazine that had apparently never known the sweet mercy of shame:

DOES DISTRICT 12 BELIEVE IN TRUE LOVE??? IS STEVE IN AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP???? QUICK RESPONSE APPRECIATED!!!!

Effie actually barked a laugh at that one, then typed back:

District 12 believes in survival, courage, discipline, admiration, discretion… and not answering cartoonish questions after midnight. Do strive for better, my darlings! We would love to discuss future features. Xx

Send.

She BCC’d her two teammates, as always.

Hopper actually wheezed when reading it. It caught him off guard, enough to where he had to take the cigarette out of his mouth and cough once into his fist.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “You’re meaner than you look.”

Effie lifted one shoulder. “I contain multitudes.”

The room kept flickering with noise.

On the giant silver screen television mounted in the living room wall, muted but still captioned, a late-night panel show was replaying clips of the monster and the field and the fire and every single talking head in the country seemed determined to say “unprecedented” until it lost all meaning. Then there was a split screen, displaying the live feed of the Games at all times.

Both of the Avox girls stationed by the far wall had stopped pretending not to watch.

They still stood straight.

Still remained eternally silent.

Still kept their hands folded neatly in front of them, as if posture could protect a person from the shape of their own life.

But their eyes were locked on the screens.

Not on Carol.

Not even really on the fire.

On the quieter boxes.

On you.

On Steve.

On the little hidden places where mercy kept trying to exist anyway.

Hopper had noticed that.

Effie did too.

Even as she kept on typing — another email, another refusal, another polite deflection, another soft little war — she couldn’t help but smile sadly in their direction. Not with pity, but with solemn understanding. It genuinely touched her, even as she kept clicking through email request after email request after email request. Some outlets wanted her comment on Ro and Steve. Some wanted exclusive quotes regarding your sponsor gifts earlier. Some wanted Cinna’s statement about the hammock and the camouflage kit. One wanted to know whether Effie believed your “earth-toned concealment palette” was an intentional callback to your bakery heritage… which made her go so still, Hopper knew somebody had just irritated the shit out of her without having to ask.

She typed back to that one with surgical precision.

No aesthetic choice connected to Miss Everdeen has ever been accidental. That will be all.

Send.

Then there were the ones asking what nobody had any business asking.

Was District 12 concerned that Steve’s unconscious state had reduced his market value?

Would Miss Trinket care to comment on whether female audiences were now beginning to divide between “the arena angel” and “the righteous fury” of Carol Perkins?

Does Hopper believe Tommy Hagan’s threat profile has just been diminished by the increased attention on Carol?

Would Cinna be willing to discuss whether deep trauma has “improved Steve Harrington’s visual mystique?”

That one made Hopper sit up straighter in the bed.

“What the fuck.”

“No,” Effie had already deleted it. “Do not. Let it. Get to you.”

He stared at her across the room through the doorway. She glanced up, stared right back… then typed her response slowly enough that he could practically read it from bed.

No.

That was the whole reply.

She sent it, BCC'd him.

“Good,” Hopper said flatly after reading it.

Effie went back to work.

The Marlboro cigarette smoke kept building faint blue layers over the room. Somewhere beneath it all was the smell of her tea, floral and useless. And all the while… the two Avox girls stayed where they were, eyes on the screens, shoulders tucked into perfect little obedient lines that made Hopper’s jaw go hard every time he looked too long.

Because the thing about these girls was… well, they’ve always been there in the penthouse.

Not loudly.

Not intrusively.

Just there.

…and you had been the first person under this roof to look at them like they were still human and not a tragic display of muted function.

That had started on day one.

You’d ask for their names, then caught yourself when you remembered they couldn’t answer.

You’d carry your own plates partway to the kitchen before they could.

You’d left foil-covered dinners for them after midnight when you knew damn well they could not (and would not) take food directly from your hands while you were standing there.

Steve had followed your lead after a while, not making a performance out of it, just quietly starting to say thank you to them every single time one of them brought something in or cleared it.

The girls had watched all of that.

So now they watched the Games like people who were not stupid enough to believe the world was kind but still foolish enough to hope a little anyway.

One of them flinched when the screen replayed the monster’s mouth.

The other didn’t.

But both of them softened when the image changed back to you, high in the tree… and Steve, asleep in the brush.

Effie finally paused long enough to lift her teacup.

Took one sip.

Made a face like she’d been poisoned by her own negligence. “Cold...”

“Shocker,” Hopper deadpanned from the bed, still staring at the TV.

“Don’t start with me.”

He smirked to himself, taking his last drag and crushing the cigarette into the ashtray before he changed the channel again. Some military analysis show now filled the TV screen.

A woman with silver hair and a voice like broken ice was now explaining the “tactical significance” of Tommy Hagan’s decision-making at the Cornucopia when Carol woke.

“A strong leader delegates,” she’s saying. “An excellent leader adapts under stress. What we saw tonight was not panic. It was a perimeter shift.”

Hopper leaned back against the headboard, rubbing a hand down his face. “Perimeter shift,” he repeated flatly.

From the couch, Effie muttered, “absolute word salad.”

She hit send on another email.

Then another.

Then another.

She was getting faster now, her tea abandoned on the side table while she chased the flood.

Dear Miss Trinket, Capitol Youth Access would love to request a quick on- camera response on whether District 12’s two central tributes are still being positioned as complementary narratives or if recent events suggest a strategic divergence—

No interview availability at this time, darlings. Narrative speculation remains the privilege of outside observers, not internal teams. Kindest regards.

Send.

Miss Trinket, there is enormous demand for insight on the now-famous “Pan and his shadow” symbolism emerging from Hawkins—

At this time, Miss Trinket will not be unpacking organic symbolism generated by a frightened hometown that loves its children. However, may it continue to soar and fly and take flight. Thank you for understanding.

Send.

We’d love to know whether District 12 feels threatened by the rising Capitol enthusiasm surrounding Carol Perkins—

District 12 feels many things. Threatened is not presently among them.

Send.

That one made Hopper actually grin around his exhaustion. “There she is. Rawr.”

Effie didn’t look up. “Hush.”

He did hush.

For about twenty seconds, making him grunt again.

Then the storm of voices on television shifted again and suddenly there was Carol’s face on every screen. Carol smeared in soot and venom-swelling and fury, flamethrower in hand in some slowed-down replay that made her look half feral angel, half war crime.

The women on The View were still going about female rage.

A news panel was dissecting the optics.

A sports commentator of all fucking things was calling her “a closer.”

And somewhere in the mess of all that, Caesar was still delightedly replaying Foxface and Thresh running side by side in the field.

“The spontaneous alliance!” he’s all but shouting. “The refusal to turn on one another under immediate threat. Audiences across the map have never seen panic choreography quite like it!…”

“…panic choreography,” Hopper echoed incredulously.

He wanted another cigarette.

Got one.

Lit it off the waning stub of the last one because apparently class had left the building somewhere around the second hour of this bullshit.

He smoked and watched and kept the bottle untouched.

That part mattered.

He didn’t say it out loud because that would make it fragile. But it mattered. 

He’d spent too many years letting booze-fueled escapism turn sharp edges soft until he couldn’t tell if he was grieving or just drifting.

Not tonight.

Tonight he needed his anger where he could see it.

Needed his fear upright and breathing.

Needed to be able to look at the little square in the iPad and know Steve was still asleep and Ro was still there while you were still hidden, and not blurred by whiskey into something he could lie to himself about.

The phone on the side table rang again.

Effie jumped.

One of the Avox girls did too.

The other was already crossing the room to hand it to her before the second ring.

Effie took it with a breathless, “Thank you, darling—” before answering in her most polished voice.

“Effie Trinket speaking.”

A pause.

Then her entire face changed.

“Darling,” she sighed warmly, “I told you to get to sleep—we’ve got that panel tomorrow now. Did you get my email??”

Hopper glanced up. “Cinna?”

She nodded, softly holding up a finger at him. Listening… Then she softened in a way that made her look suddenly very young. “We’re still both up, yes…” A beat. “Yes, I know.” Another beat, then a smirk. “Of course I’m still responding. What else would I be doing? Knitting?”

Hopper barked a laugh.

Effie pointed at him without looking, grinning while turning away slightly while still on the phone. “Yes, well—neither of us can sleep,” she spoke into the phone, dropping her voice. Then she sighed, arching a brow as she glanced sideways at Hopper through the open doorway. “Smoking like a chimney… and pretending not to care. So, yes. Everything is exactly as bleak and elegant as you’d imagine.”

Another pause.

This one was longer.

Then the tiniest smile formed.

“Yes. I’ll tell him.”

Another pause.

Another tiny smile.

“…agreed,” she agreed quietly, eyes sparkling. “The divine is with our angel.” She glanced up at the television screen, visibly swallowing as she watched. “I’d dare say she had two extra guardians pleading her case today.”

Hopper actually glanced down at his lap, smiling to himself at that.

He knew she was referring to both him and Cinna’s work today in the square.

Effie smiled up at the television now, sniffling slightly before smiling brightly. “Well. Get some rest, dear. Big day tomorrow.” She paused, nodding once to his voice on the other side as she whispered, “goodnight, darling.”

She hung up.

Set the phone down.

Looked up at Hopper. “Cinna says if you smoke enough to die before those children get back, he’ll resurrect you just to let me kill you myself.”

Hopper smiled around the cigarette. “Good to know he cares.”

Effie returned to her laptop with a content little yawn.

Time kept moving in ugly little jumps.

The Capitol outside the tall penthouse windows kept blazing like it had never known a blackout in its life.

The television kept buzzing.

The media kept chattering and theorizing.

The Games kept not ending.

And eventually, because the human body was a vindictive little machine, no matter how well-trained it was… exhaustion finally began catching up to Effie in visible ways.

She yawned again, this time broader. Her shoulders tightened beneath all of her silks, her mascara-smudgeless eyes losing some of their glitter. One heel came off beneath her and got tucked under her on the couch while she kept typing.

She puffed her lips, sending off yet another email.

Then she reached for the tea again…

Missed.

Knocked the whole cup sideways.

It hit the edge of the side table, tipped, and spilled out in a wet lavender-hued sheet across the expensive carpet.

“Oh—” Effie let out a little yelp, genuinely startling herself.

Both Avox girls moved instantly.

One for the cup, one for the cloths.

Effie was already half on her feet. “Oh, I’m so sorry—darling, goodness—no, please—oh, let me help—”

They didn’t let her.

That was the thing.

They never did when she was flustered.

They just moved with those quick, quiet hands and solemn little faces and made order out of whatever had just happened — all while Effie stood there clutching her own wrists like she didn’t know where to put them.

“Please,” she said softly, “darlings—I’m the one who knocked it over.”

One girl looked up at her.

Then the other.

No judgment in either face. No resentment. Just that same sad patience that had become worse than accusation ever could’ve been.

Effie went still.

For one tiny, weird moment, the room seemed to go quiet around the edges despite all the televisions still yammering.

She reached without thinking.

And with a gentleness so instinctive that it nearly undid Hopper just watching it from where he now stood in the bedroom doorway… she touched one girl’s cheek with one hand and the other’s face with the other.

“Thank you,” Effie fiercely whispered, and her voice had gone fragile enough that it barely sounded like her. “Truly.”

They froze.

Both of them.

Just for a second.

Then one of them — the taller one, the girl with the long solemn face and red ponytail — sheepishly ducked her head with the nearest thing to a shy smile that Hopper had seen from any person in this building all week.

The other girl’s mouth did something too. Not quite a smile, but the memory of one that actually met her eyes.

Then they both went right back to cleaning up the tea spill… like nothing had ever happened at all.

Effie stood there a second longer than she needed to. Then she back down slowly on the couch after they’d taken the ruined cup and the damp cloths off into the kitchen.

…and suddenly all the air seemed to leave her.

Not dramatically.

No great collapse.

She just sat there with both hands clasped over her lips, elbows to her knees while staring at the television as the news went right on eating itself.

Hopper didn’t say anything.

Didn’t joke.

Didn’t tell her to go to bed or to stop fretting or say that “things would be fine” — because he had enough respect for her not to insult her with bullshit.

Instead, he sighed through his nose before pushing off the doorframe, quietly making his way into the living room at a slow saunter with his arms crossed, eyes on the larger TV’s display.

Onscreen, another replay of the monster rolled.

Another expert. Another angle. Another bit of public ecstasy over nightmare.

On his iPad, you were still hidden.

Steve was still sleeping.

Ro was still curled in and waiting.

And here in the living room, Effie’s shoulders started trembling. Very faintly… And when she spoke, it was so quiet that Hopper almost didn’t hear it.

“Please.”

He looked over.

She still had both hands over her lips, eyes glassy and fixed on the screens.

“…Please make it back,” Effie whispered to the room, to the cameras, to the children she could not reach. “I have so much left to do for you.”

The kitchen light shifted when the Avox girls moved in the other room.

The television kept talking.

The Capitol kept shining.

And in the middle of all that noise, all that silk, all that money and spectacle and sharpened appetite for blood, Effie’s prayer sat there… naked and small and human.

Not for victors.

Not for ratings.

Not even for glory.

Just for two scared teens from a broken hometown to come back alive long enough to be called home.

⚕️

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